Preview
  • Mother of Invention

  • How Good Ideas Get Ignored in a World Built for Men
  • By: Katrine Marcal
  • Narrated by: Sofia Engstrand
  • Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Mother of Invention

By: Katrine Marcal
Narrated by: Sofia Engstrand
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.26

Buy for $24.26

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

An illuminating and maddening examination of how gender bias has skewed innovation, technology, history and work.

It all starts with a rolling suitcase.

The wheel was invented some 5,000 years ago, and the modern suitcase in the mid-nineteenth century, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that someone successfully married the two. What was the hold up? For writer and journalist Katrine Marçal, the answer is both shocking and simple: because "real men" carried their bags, no matter how heavy. There were rolling suitcases before the '70s, but they were marketed as a niche product for (the presumably few) women travelling alone, and the wheeled suitcase wasn't "invented" until it was no longer threatening to masculinity.

Mother of Invention draws on this example and many others, from electric cars to tech billionaires, to show how gender bias stifles the economy and holds us back. Our traditional notions about men and women have delayed innovations, sometimes by hundreds of years, and have distorted our understanding of our history. While we talk about the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, we might as well talk about the Ceramic Age or the Flax Age, since these technologies were just as important. But inventions associated with women are not considered to be technology in the same way.

Katrine Marçal’s Mother of Invention is a fascinating examination of business, technology, and innovation through a feminist lens. Marçal takes us on a tour of the global economy, arguing that gendered assumptions dictate which businesses get funding, how we value work, and how we trace human progress. And it carries a powerful message: If we upend our biases, we can unleash our full potential, tackling climate change and wielding technology to become more human, rather than less.

©2021 Katrine Marcal (P)2021 Doubleday Canada
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

Longlisted for the 2021 Porchlight Business Book Awards

Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

"From wheeled suitcases to witch trials, Katrine Marçal makes you look again at history in this funny, clever, and provocative book." (Helen Lewis, author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights)

"Infuriating, but always thought-provoking and intriguing. A clearly needed wake-up call to future innovators not to view the world through a narrowly gendered lens but to pay attention to the skills and lived experiences of all." (Gina Rippon, author of Gender and Our Brains)

What listeners say about Mother of Invention

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.